Justin Lowe And Trent Hafdahl Are Leading the Next Generation of Guitarists

I love After The Burial. Last year when Devildriver did our co-headline tour of North America and we chose opening acts, John Boecklin and I picked these guys. I first discovered them by seeing their hilarious Guitar World lesson videos online. Upon further listening, I just absolutely fell in love with these guys. Lead by Justin Lowe and Trent Hafdahl, this band has been crushing audiences with their polyrhythmic-infused heaviness and down-tuned riffs. A definite crowd favorite, on tour our whole band and crew eventually developed quite the affinity for After The Burial.

I remember when Wolves Within came out while we were on tour, I was texting with Justin and telling him all the bands I thought that they paid tribute to with the new album and upon espousing this all to Trent in person, he said to me, “Hey man, we are After The Burial, we don’t sound like anyone else.” I immediately agreed and retracted my statement – these guys are in a total league of their own.

The whole notion of 8-string guitars still kind of blows my mind these days and of course now there are 9-string guitars which make things even more crazy. While the advent of both seem fairly new (in the 9-string case it is) these two have been playing 8-strings for many years, close to ten actually. It is even more than this that makes them so cutting edge. The true virtuosity that both these players possess is mind blowing. They play so well together (which is an even more an impressive feat), write well together and also are in charge of producing the albums. Pretty sick stuff! If you haven’t gotten a chance to check out their latest offering Wolves Within, do so now and have your face blown off.

Did I mention their sense of humor? The recent “12 Days of Riff-Mas” was truly hilarious and very creative. Check out an episode below.

Mark my words, people will talking about these two for years to come! Even DeadMau5 tweeted about how sick they were, enough said!